Ron Wyden: than former prime minister, british prime minister margaret thatcher in a prerecorded eulogy that was played at president reagan's funeral at the national cathedral. i'd like to read just a little of that eulogy. it starts "we have lost a great president, a great american, and a great man."

Ron Wyden: and mrs. thatcher said, "i have lost a dear friend. in his lifetime, ronald reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence it was easy to forget what daunting task he set for himself. he sought to mend america's wounded spirit, restore the strength of the free world and to free the slaves of communism. these were causes hard to

Ron Wyden: accomplish and heavy with risk." mrs. thatcher went on, "yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. for ronald reagan also embodied another great cause, what arnold bennett once called -- quoting arnold bennett -- the great cause of cheering us all up.

Ron Wyden: back to mrs. thatcher: he won converts from every class and every nation and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire. yet his humor often had a purpose beyond humor. in the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. they are evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the

Ron Wyden: midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. they were truly grace under pressure. and perhaps they signified grace of a different kind. mrs. thatcher says, ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. as he told a priest after his

Ron Wyden: recovery, whatever time i've got left now belongs to the big fellow upstairs. and surely it's hard to deny that ronald reagan's life wasn't providential. when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed. other prophesied the decline of the west. he inspired americans and its

Ron Wyden: allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom. others saw only limits of growth. he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. others hoped at best for an uneasy cohabitation with the soviet union. he won the cold war. not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out

Ron Wyden: of their fortress and turning them into friends. mrs. thatcher goes on to say, i cannot imagine how any diplomat or any dramatist could improve on his words to mikhail gorbachev at the geneva summit. quoting president reagan: let me tell you why it is we distrust you. mrs. thatcher says those words

Ron Wyden: are candid and tough, and they can't have been easy to hear. but they were also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust. ronald reagan's -- finishing with mrs. thatcher and moving to me for a moment, i'd say ronald reagan's truly only american

Ron Wyden: life story began 200 years ago this weekend. during his lifetime he was a democrat and later a republican. he was a liberal and then a conservative. he was a labor union president and then president of the united states. during his lifetime, he developed a philosophy of faith, life, and government that

Ron Wyden: americans understood. americans understood, and during his presidency the people of this country had an extraordinary understanding of what their president would think and how their president would react to events and circumstances. mr. president, the strength of the certain trumpet, the

Ron Wyden: strength of the clarion call; i believe, impossible to overestimate. knowing how your president, how your leader views the world and views the circumstances that may meet us in the world is an incredibly comforting thing. in fact, there's an epic greek fable more often applied to

Ron Wyden: president lincoln about the fox and the hedgehog. and in the epic great fable of the fox and the hedgehog, the fox is wiley, the fox is clever, the fox knows lots of little things. but the hedgehog knows one really big thing. and in that fable and in reality, the fox can never

Ron Wyden: defeat the hedgehog. neither lincoln -- i'm really not comfortable referring to either lincoln or reagan and characterize them as a hedgehog, but i am comfortable characterizing them as men of big ideas, men who understood the big things, leaders who understood the big things.

Ron Wyden: with lincoln, it was the union. with president reagan, it was a focus on the big things with an understanding that you measured the circumstances and events that came up by your view of the big things that guide the country, that guide us individually, that guide lives and in fact guide the lives of the nation.

Ron Wyden: president reagan understood big things. he could quickly evaluate any issue or challenge through that prism and the prism of those core values. ronald reagan, mr. president, inspired freedom and changed the world, and the centennial celebration of his birth that begins this week and officially

Ron Wyden: begins this weekend gives us an opportunity to think about what it was that made this president great, what it was that puts this president on the cover of news magazines in the decade before the centennial, arm in arm in one recent cover with the current president of the united

Ron Wyden: states, what was it that made this extraordinary man so extraordinary? and i would just say again, ronald reagan inspired freedom and changed the world. mr. president, i request a quorum. the presiding of